Both in the same picture?!?!?

Earlier in the day, John worked with the Lawrence kids to take head shots for their school pictures. We joke that this is Tommy's school shot this year, complete with the dirtiest face he could possibly get! Since this is how Thomas typically looks after a day on the beach and up in the shop, it really is quite fitting we think!

Best Buddies!

You can just imagine them as old farts!

33 Big Ones

Today is my birthday. On Tuesday of this week, my office mates surprised me with an awesome Thai luncheon. After a meeting with our supervisors, Rhonda said that I needed to wait for her to run out to meet with someone at the garden that we manage. I didn't really want to wait all that long, so I put a Weight Watchers Hot Pocket in the microwave to feed my growling stomach. Jim comes over and tells me he's really hungry and asks for a piece of my hot pocket. Surprised that he would ask, as it was a small pocket and Weight Watchers at that, I quickly cut him the bigger piece, knowing he had to be hungry to ask. Shortly after sharing with me, I walked into the lunch room to find all this Thai food and my co workers set up to eat lunch together. Although I missed Don being there to celebrate, hopefully we can send him a few pictures to let him know we were thinking of him.

Today, I woke up to hit the gym early for the day with my bestest buddy Jenny and off we went. Watching the Hawks lose was no way to spend a birthday morning, but it was a lot of fun to take a birthday nap after waking up early. Once we all woke up from our naps, we loaded up the cars for a trip out to McPhail's to get pumpkins. Cooper is at an age where he is running around with the other kids, and we had a great time feeding the animals, climbing on the farm equipment and riding the tractor out to the field of pumpkins. Taking a family picture proved easier for the Lawrences than us Whipples. It may be a while before the boys will actually cooperate enough to get a good one of us all.

That evening Rhonda joined in on the fun, coming over for dinner of Thai at the Lawrences. There we celebrated with Thai, presents and sprinkle cake. It is So fun to share a birthday with my main man, Isaac! What a treat it is to share this day with him! Jenny totally over did it and surprised me with a beautiful new coat to wear and Rhonda blessed me with a new heating pad (to replaced my nearly destroyed, ancient one I've been dealing with), a massage and the New Kids CD I asked her for. How cool is that! I was thrilled. It was a great day and a fabulous birthday. Lil made brownies and I took advantage of our extra tough workouts to enjoy not only the cake at Jenny's, but the brownies as well!

October 1st Lake Swimming!

Our theme of the summer was jumping, swimming and bbq's. It was a fabulous summer and to celebrate this beautiful weather we're having and our thankfulness for a period of great weather following a less than memorable August, we took up the opportunity to jump into the freezing waters of Lake Whatcom tonight. It was almost dark, but we did it in various stages. Thomas and Isaac went in first, then quickly followed Rhonda and Cynthia into the deep end. While we warmed up in the hot water buckets, Lance and John decided they too had to get in the fun and jumped in as well. After several weeks of chilly temps, the water has cooled off considerably. We will see how long we will continue to jump into the lake!

Words by Cooper at 17 months old

Ma-Ma, Da-Da, moo-rh (more), I--see (Isaac) ba-ba (bottle) and he goes to the dishwasher to pull it out, Bah(Grandpa) Up, Ah-ple (apple) Cheesh (cheese) Off, Jush (juice),