Foto Phriday - 9/27/13

This is my ninety-sixth Foto Phriday post. I finally finished editing my Japan photos and typing up my trip reports, so these should become more regular again. For this entry, we're backlogging all the way from the beginning of July. The pictures today are from Fourth of July, hiking, a parade, my new car, Deception Pass, Flaming Geyser State Park, blueberry picking, Harstine Island, Julie's first day of school, PAX 2013, and camping. Phew! Full set with all 145 photos can be viewed here.

For Fourth of July (a.k.a. Bethany's birthday), we decided to dress up in country wear. There was lots of yummy food and the largest fireworks show ever held by us. Which was... like... five fireworks.

Hiked Twin Falls again over the summer with our friends Sam and David. Always like visiting this place.

Went to the Des Moines Waterland Parade with Jason and his family. Here are Juliana and James who are having fun because the people in the parade threw free candy at them.

There were guys doing motorcycle tricks during the parade.

Coral actually enjoyed the parade, too. She waved at all the people and floats going by.

The Seafair pirates eventually passed by with their loud ship.

I bought a brand new car. Have always had my eye on a Subaru Impreza for its 4-wheel drive and sedan qualities. I love it.

We visited Deception Pass on a really nice day this summer. I hadn't been there for years. Forgot how narrow and high up it is. It was nerve-wracking carrying a wiggly toddler across it.

The bridge offers some really nice views.

All three of my girls seemed to enjoy themselves.

Under the bridge.

We picked up some muffins from The Bakery at The Market in Anacortes and ate them at a nearby farm. Their Milky Way muffin is AAAAA-mazing!

We visited our favorite spot in Flaming Geyser State Park. There's a nice shallow creek with lots of fish to catch. We caught some baby salmon as well as a crayfish!

This one had too much fun!

On another day, we went blueberry picking at our favorite spot, Larsen Lake.

Coral loved wandering around the blueberry bushes. She even picked some blueberries and ate them. Even the unripe green ones. Yuck!

Juliana lost her first tooth in the middle of August! The tooth next to it soon followed. This girl is growing up way too fast.

We went to Harstine Island with some friends on a nice day. We had a picnic on the beach and found a fun rope swing to play on. Here is Emma swinging on it.

Here's her little sister, Hannah.

Yours truly. I'm an adult.

Coral watched.

Juliana had her first day of school at the end of August. What a huge day! The Kent School District actually does all-day kindergarten, which I think is great. Also, even though she's in public school, they have to wear uniforms. Pretty different.

It's hard to describe how different it feels to have Julie going to school now. You see, with preschool, someone was always dropping her off or picking her up and she was often in the classroom. Now she rides the school bus, by herself. She has to find her classroom, by herself. And she has to know her way around school, by herself. It's a new sense of her growing independence. All of me feels like we should be there to help her, and to hold her hand through everything, but I know that she's ready for this.

Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) has always been something I've wanted to go to, but could never justify paying large sums of money for. Just like I did with Sakura-con, I originally planned on hanging out and just taking pictures without going inside. However, my friend Elyssa told me that I could borrow her Sunday PAX pass for a few hours since she was going to a concert during the day. In exchange, I took photos of her cosplaying as Lara Croft from the rebooted Tomb Raider series.

Elyssa definitely looked the part and was stopped at least five times while we were walking to and from our photo shoot.

Being inside PAX was pretty much everything I was expecting it to be. I was pretty impressed by the size of it all.

Things I liked about PAX: 1) The culture and the people. Being around other people who are into games and comics as much as you is fun. It reminded me a lot of visiting the anime stores in Tokyo. You feel like you belong. 2) The Handheld Lounges. Chillin' on an oversized pillow while automatically sharing Streetpass information on Nintendo 3DS was awesome. I filled up my entire HH Showcase in Animal Crossing: New Leaf super fast. 3) The merch. There were a lot of things to purchase at PAX that you can't easily find online.

Things I disliked about PAX: 1) Game demos. Granted, I was forced to skip the really popular games (like Watch Dogs, World of Tanks, and Titanfall) since I only had a few hours in the expo, but the majority of games that you can demo or preview were also available to download at home. Why the heck would I wait in a line to demo Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA ƒ (pictured above) when I can demo it at home or just buy the full game online!? 2) Small indie games section. One of the most intriguing sections of PAX is indie games booths, by far. Some of these games and concepts are out of this world. However, they barely get any space to show off their games resulting in their areas always being super crowded. Why does Xfinity need 100 square feet of space when they don't even make games? 3) The free swag. I expected more and I expected cooler. Weak showing.

The PlayStation 4. She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.

I can only imagine how hellish it must have been to set up all of these gaming PCs.

Game developer The Behemoth had a good showing for a company that only makes three major games. Castle Crashers is still fun to play, but I wish I could play BattleBlock Theater. It's only on Xbox Live Arcade.

A couple weekends ago, my parents took their new R-Pod trailer camper to Dash Point State Park and invited us to hang out for the day.

We walked down to the beach to play for a little while, then came back for some burgers, hot dogs, and s'mores. The plan was to let Juliana stay the night with them, so this marked her first camping trip. She loved it and I'm sure there will be more camping trips to come. To see more pictures from any of these events, view the full set.