Two weekends in and already I am exhausted! We kicked off summer with a bang, or perhaps more of a waddle, as I finished my second half marathon of the year. The Seattle Rock N Roll was huge (the 35 waves of starters took almost an hour!) which meant being surrounded by people the whole route—as well as half hour waits in the porta potty lines. Finished but did not meet my time goal. Sigh.
The next day I ambitiously took the girls to the Bothell Arts Festival and Bellevue Strawberry Festival. The arts festival did not have much of interest for the girls except for a chalking area, where C drew beautiful pictures and M got covered in chalk. Oh, M also ran through a special environmentally sound ground covering.
The strawberry festival included radically overpriced rides ($7 for the three of us to each go down a big slide once??) and ice cream cones. Sadly, we were too late for face painting this year.
The week itself was busy with dentist appointments, swimming class, sewing class, general hanging around in the neighborhood and art camp for C.
Her traced collage self portrait.
This last weekend was all about preparing for the insanity that is the Fourth of July in Bothell. As is typical, I added to the insanity by trying to make four different ice creams (made it to three—basil with honeyed pine nut praline; chocolate coconut curry; and beet with mascarpone cheese, orange zest and poppy seeds. Thank you Jeni’s Splendid ice cream cookbook!) and starting a new themed outfit for M. On Saturday. Sunday was a late night!
Anyway, first up was the kid’s parade with the necessary bike and scooter decorating.
M started off on her bike for the parade but quickly got tired legs.
After that was watching the main parade. Neighbors brought down our chairs on Saturday night to reserve a good spot, and except for the fact that someone moved the chairs to sit in front of us it worked out pretty well.
Back home for naps (M, and ok, me too) and final food preparations. And then…party! 
Food, bouncy house, treats, and the newly popular RC car racing.
There were lots and lots of fireworks. (As the friendly Bothell policeman told us when he arrived, firecrackers are not legal so he confiscated those. But everything else is fair game!) A bit loud for some.
(I thought M’s outfit had a certain Sound of Music curtains fabulousness. It is shorts and a top.)
Most of the best fireworks were saved for after dark, but I chose to just enjoy rather than try to take pictures this year. This is the debris from very early in the evening…I think we had several wheel barrows full of remains by the end of the night.
Phew. Onwards summer!