Three Trips, Three States, Three Posts - Post Three

Our third and final trip in the three week, three trip saga was a weekend with friends and their kids and a family cabin on Vashon Island.   The weather was perfect, the food was delish and the company was so much fun!  Here is a shot of our home for the weekend. :]

We took the ferry over on Friday night and took a take home pizza from Saucy Sisters and it was SO good!  If you ever want pizza on Vashon, go there!  We all turned in semi early that night, everyone was tired from the work week so after a glass of wine and some laughs, we hit the hay.

I love the room we get when we stay there because of these guys. :]

The next morning we were up and at em and BBQing by 10 am.  We took walks on the beach but mostly just sat around talking and eating! We brought over a bunch of pig out in the park sausage from Spokane that we grilled up and snacked on throughout the day.

We spent all of Saturday and Sunday out on the water.  It was so relaxing!  We played music all day, had a constant flow of snacks and food, spent the day SUPing and had fun conversation!  It was a great weekend!

 

 

 The dogs had a blast too...

 

 

We ended our nights with smores and a campfire...

 

and the mornings looked a little like this! :]

So that sums up our summer travels! Nothing fancy but lots of fun!

Three Trips, Three States, Three Posts - Post Two

Our second trip of the Dobson Summer vacation marathon continued on a camping trip to Lake Cushman.

I don't have as many photos of this trip because I wasn't allowed to document the "no makeup" "haven't washed my hair today" look.

This trip marked the maiden voyage of the Dobstar with whom we fell in love and made part of our family!

It also marked Crusie's first camping trip and just like Flat Head, the overstimulation resulted in lots of sleep :]

We cheersed ourselves with Rainier beer at 9am...

Played ladder ball with British accents...

And we're constantly yelling for our pups.

We had campfires, ate a ton of good food and have so many fun memories. Justin and I still laugh out loud at some of the events of the weekend :]

Abu and Ace needed some R&R on their aunties lap from all the swimming and ball playing!

It was a pretty ruff weekend for them!  :]

We're already looking forward to next year!  Cheers!

Our New Family Member

We have a new family member in the Dobson house... The tent camper! 

Some family friends of ours were selling and let us borrow it for a weekend of camping and we fell in love!

It's big for a growing family and will make camping easier and more enjoyable for us :].  Here is a little tour!

The outside of course. It's a 1999 Starcraft, we'll call it the Dobcraft, is super clean and much larger inside than it looks from here.

After entering the door (you can see on the right) and turning to your right we have a king bed behind a comfy couch  (that can turn into a bed) and a dinette area (that can also turn into a bed. Underneath the couch is an self draining cooler that you can keep drinks etc in.

Now walking in the camper and turning to te left we have the "kitchen" with a pop up sink and mini fridge (under the Tupperware drawer). The metal bit on the floor is a propane stove top that connects to the outside of the camper. 

What you see in the back is a generous queen size bed and a full view of the left side of the camper.

We love it and I can't wait to get my hands on it! I've already been on Pinterest looking to see how to maximize storage and might even update it a little.  I will definitely fill you in on all that We decide to do.  Until then, welcome to the family little Dobstar, we love you!

Three Trips, Three States, Three Posts - Post One

We have gone on three trips in the past three weeks. Each trip was so much fun and were happy now to be home and enjoying the rest of our summer! :]

The first of the trips was out to Flat Head Lake, Montana.  We went with Justin's family and close family friends who have a cabin out there. 

We drove over to my inlaws in Spokane and stayed a night there to break up the trip. While we were here we dipped Cru in the pool for the first time! (He liked it)

We crossed over three states and arrived in Flat head in the evening so I was able to catch a purty sunset photo.

We mostly sunbathed on the dock but decided to rent a pontoon boat for one day. We had lots of fun floating around, listening to country music and swimming. We had lunch and drinks on board and looked at all the amazing houses on the lake. Cru tolerated it... :]

The dogs were constantly in the water...

And Cru took lots of naps...

It's was a fun relaxing week! 

Patio and Deck!

Summertime equals outdoor projects for the Dobson house and we have been at it!

For about two years we have had little makeshift stairs leading out to the back yard from our french doors. This summer it had to be changed. We decided to finally use a bunch of free pavers we had to build a patio and build large wood steps coming off the back doors. 

The first thing we did was rip up the sod from our desired patio area and dig out about 15 inches of dirt.  After that we poured in about 12 inches of gravel and an inch or two of sand to allow for proper drainage and to create a plyable surface for leveling.

The next phase was to level the ground out and start laying pavers.  Our leveling method consisted of running two long rebars parallel to one another that ran the width of our patio area then taking a 2x4 board and running it perpendicular down the rebar pieces to push out excessive sand and make things even.

Then justin and his pops started laying the pavers.

Once all the tile was laid, we started building the steps (I say "we" but it was really all Justin).

We stuck with a really easy design since we are novice deck builders and because we just wanted something safe and simple. 

I love the steps because the can also be used as additional seating!

I placed some of my flower less pots to stage the space. You'll notice some missing pavers, we had to wait for them to come over from Spokane. They are now in place and the space is really coming together!

We're still working back here, (think gray paint :]). Ill be back soon to update you on all that jazz!   

Hope you're all having a great summer!