Summer is officially over and that makes me kind of sad.

It is my favorite season. It is happy. Sunny. Dressing for the day is effortless. Giant sunglasses are always appropriate and eating half a box of popsicles is totally acceptable. So as I tossed in a couple of pumpkin spice wax melts into m’trusyty Yankee Candle warmer the other night, I thought, “I never even said goodbye to summer”. So here it is, folks.

Adieu. Adieu. To you and you and summer.

At the end of this summer, we planned to meet my family in Priest Lake for our annual family vacation. First though, we met up with some friends from the North and spent a few days in Coeur d’Alene. Even though the smoke levels were at an all-time high, we ended up having a great time with their family. We also got to spend some time with sister Amy and my beautiful sister in law Shannon!

One of the days, we decided to brave Silverwood. And lemme just tell ya, theme parks ain’t NO place if you are with child. While the crew was having a blast on roller coasters…(or log rides)

I was off to the side like this: (check out the snaggle!)

As the week progressed, my family ended up deciding to cancel the cabin on Priest Lake due to the piss poor air quality. It was sad but did not kill our spirits. We ended up driving to good ol’ Kennewick for a family shanghai tourney (with cash prizes!) and some time at the FAIR.

Can you believe in all of the years I lived in the Tri, I never once went to the fair. Ok, maaaaybe in like, middle school but it had been some yurrs. I decided to commemorate the momentous occasion by dressing the part. Mostly though, I just wanted an excuse to not shower, eat an elephant ear, wear dirty Adidas slides and American Eagle jean shorts circa 2004.

Oh, I also sported some black liner ala Junior High.

Sister Meg was sick in bed so we got to take Taterbug with us and had THEE best time toting him around the fair.

David ended up winning him the most giant stuffie of all time doing the basketball game.

The two best parts about the fair and Tate’s relationship to it were going on rides and using the bathroom. He is currently in potty training mode and peeing outside is a new, fun option for him. A couple of times he started pulling his pants down to go pee in the middle of the rides and we had to pick him up to pee behind a dumpster. He fit right in!

The rides were also tough for little Tate. E tried her best to get him excited about a little baby roller coaster but he just wasn’t having it. Luckily, Uncle David is a master of distraction and got him to ride the Wiggly Worm with no issues. And he loved it!

The end of our trip was spent with ice cream at McDonalds,

and taking tons of selfies.

We returned to Portland that weekend and had a day to spare so David and I ended up doing a little maternity shopping (more on THAT later) and picnicking in Washington Park.

And while maternity shopping was fine and all, buying baby clothes is infinitely better as evidenced here:

Our picnic that day was so quintessential Portland. We went to the Saturday market and purchased Portland Cider Company cider, Portland Creamery herbs de provence goat cheese, Olympic Provisions sausage and a cheesy and salty pastry from Grano. All I needed to really look the part was a monocle.