Mini Family Reunion

My mom's side of the family all came up to our lake cabin this past weekend for a mini family reunion. My mom is one of four sisters and it is rare to have a chance for all of us to get together, but, shy of missing a couple people, we made it happen! And what better place for a family gathering in the summer than Murphy Bay?!

The first big event of the weekend was my Dad's biggest catch of the season, a six pound bass. It was HUGE!!! He was soooo excited...

None of my cousins have had kids yet, and we realized we have totally compensated for not giving our parents grandkids by giving them "grand-dogs" instead. :) We are totally a dog family -- there were six dogs up at the lake this weekend, and they all did so great together! Well, other than the occasional instance of Charlie shaking off on Major...

Or giving Chris kisses in between pull-ups on the dock...

My cousin, Megan, is one of the most beautiful people I know... if someone took a close-up profile shot of me like this I would look like a clown and my head would take up the whole picture. I love this shot with the reflection of the lake in her sunglasses...

Jordan hates it when I say this, but I swear that Maggie has eerie human tendencies sometimes. Case and point: how many dogs do you know that lounge on a beach towel on a sun chair on the dock?

My mom's side of the family is primarily girls -- she is one of four sisters, and out of my seven cousins on that side, five are girls -- which leads to A LOT of talking! :)

The beautiful Lynberg ladies -- my cousins, Sara and Megan, and my aunt Penny.

Mom, Penny, and Charlie all standing in the water. Yes, that's right, Charlie stands in the water...

My cousin, Kate, and her ADORABLE dog, Valor. I contemplated stealing Valor probably around 50 times this weekend. :) Valor is a Cairn Terrier, and when he's full grown he'll be similar to Maggie's size.

Don't you think a black Cairn Terrier would be the perfect addition to our family?!?!? Maggie needs a brother... I already have a name picked out! Whoops. :)

Sara, Meg, and Chris out on the floatie. Sara came all the way from Detroit for the reunion!

Me and my little Maggie. I'm pretty sure she licked the inside of my mouth in this picture...

I love my cousins! All of the girls, minus Lindsay.

My cousin, Ben, and Megan's husband, Chris, decided to have a flip contest on the diving board... let's just say there were lots of laughs!

And then Chris decided to throw Maggie over his shoulder like an 80's style boom box pose...

Charlie is just a tad bigger than Maggie, and a little heavier I'm guessing... :)

When all the cousins were little (I'm talking when I was 4 or 5 years old), we made a home music video to the song "Cocomo" by the Beach Boys. Since Ben was the oldest, he was the lead singer and the rest of us were back-up dancers and singers... an instant classic! Anyway, someone had the clever idea to bring the video to the lake, and it was the first time Jolene, Ben's wife, had ever seen it...

No lake weekend is complete without some quality bonfire time! Grandma Ha and Lindsay (she finally made it after work on Saturday night!)

Chris and Jordan are two peas in a pod...

Apparently we don't mess around when it comes to s'more time! I love how intense this picture is. :)

To see all the pictures from the weekend, click here.

Downtown Dog Date

My sister and I have been doing a takeout-food-and-dog-walking date every week or so, which has been so much fun! This week I brought my camera along to snap some pics...

First of all, of course, the food! One of our all-time favorites is the raspberry poppyseed salad from Tomato Street -- it is FANTASTIC!! The best part is, I recently discovered that they actually sell the raspberry poppy salad dressing at Tomato Street so you can make it yourself. The ingredients are: Romaine lettuce, grilled chicken, sliced strawberries, feta cheese crumbles, dried cranberries, candied walnuts, and the dressing, of course. I highly recommend it as a great summer salad!

I absolutely adore this picture of Maggie, up close and personal. :)

And Lindsay's little Yorkie, named Reece! My dog-nephew... isn't he a cutie?!

We've been walking downtown, near Lindsay's loft, on the Centennial Trail along the river. It's such a beautiful trail!

Stopping for a water break!

I love walking down this trail because it reminds me that Spokane can actually be really beautiful...

Auntie Lindsay walking both dogs while I took pictures...

Me and Mags smiling for the camera. :) I love this little dog way too much...

Lindsay and Reece -- notice his tongue all the way past his nose! He's always licking, just like Maggie...

Downtown Spokane with a gorgeous evening sky. We really need to give this city more credit sometimes...

Towards the end of our walk, the dogs started to get riled up and we looked ahead and saw all these HUGE ducks (are they ducks?!) crossing the street right by C.I. Shenanigans Restaurant. Despite the fact that they were hissing at the dogs, it actually turned into a pretty picture.

Extreme Makeover: Backyard Edition

Our big project for the summer has been fixing up our backyard. We started this process way back at the beginning of June! I didn't get a great "before" picture because I didn't think of it until we had already started working, but this gives you somewhat of an idea on why our backyard needed a makeover... yikes...

After a LOT of work, a LOT of help, and a few Coronas later, here is the first stage of the backyard makeover!

Jordan and my Dad actually built the raised planters so we could have a little garden in our backyard -- aren't those great?! Since we first moved into our house, Jordan has wanted to have a garden and now we finally do!

We also decided to use the wine barrel my sister got us from Barrister Winery as a wedding gift and cut it in half to use for flower pots. When we cut it in half, this is what we saw; I couldn't believe it! And I'm not kidding, it smelled like wine...

Like I said, we had a LOT of help with everything! My Mom, Dad, and Grandma came over to help us plant our garden (since they are gardening pros!), and somehow my Dad wound up digging a stump out of our lawn... don't ask me how that happened. :) Joelle, Jordan's little sister, even helped!

We planted peas, green beans, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, lettuce, tomatoes, and even a watermelon!

My Mom, teaching us the ins-and-outs of gardening!

Just in case you thought I was kidding about the Coronas... :)

Okay, I know this sounds nerdy, but I was SO excited about our flower pots! It was such a process picking out flowers we both liked (we went to 3 different stores), and I personally think they turned out so great.

Jordan and I had to laugh about the things we get excited about now... flowers, our grass growing, a new sprinkler... you get the idea. Apparently getting married, getting older, and being a home-owner turns you into a huge dork! :)

Ta-da! The whole garden with the cute barn stars finally hung!! I can't even tell you how much this cleaned up our backyard!

In addition to the garden, we re-seeded all the grass to fill in the dirt spots, planted a flower vine on the side of our neighbor's shed to eventually hide it, and planted these shrub trees to serve as a privacy wall alongside the hot tub. Now we just need it all to GROW!!!

Oh, and most importantly, we finally got one of the famous Murphy bottle-openers for our BBQ area on the patio. :)

All the pictures above are over a month old, and I finally got around to taking some "progress" pictures a couple nights ago, which are all posted below...

Look how much the garden has grown!!!

I think Maggie was playing peek-a-boo with me behind the planter. :)

My Grandma gave us a daisy plant, and this one daisy is going so strong -- I love it!

Last, but not least... drum roll please...

Jordan got the brilliant idea to "save money" by building his own golf practice area on the other side of the garden so he won't have to go to the driving range. He bought sod for it, got sand from the lake for a sand trap, and is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the huge net he ordered online to hit golf balls into. He is SO excited about it!

Just what every woman wants in her backyard... :)

My one stipulation on the whole thing was that he'd be able to take the poles and the net down if we wanted to for any reason -- so rest assured, it can be moved if need be. Although I have a feeling that he'll be using it too much to ever take it down...

So there you have it, the Tampien Backyard Makeover! I can't wait until we actually have fresh vegetables to eat out of our own garden. And since we've already established that I'm a huge nerd, you can probably expect a post on that later this summer. :)