I took a day off work to go shrimping with one of my best friends, Selden Daniels, his daughter Kim, and her daughter Kaley. We "shrimped" in Aleck Bay, near Deception Pass. The swells were pretty rough early in the morning, but by mid afternoon it was glassy smooth, the scenery was beautiful and the shrimping was good! We all caught our limit (80 of the little buggers) and had a great time in the process.
Before
Now it's just a question of how to eat them, there's boiled shrimp, steamed shrimp, shrimp scampe, shrimp kabobs, creole shrimp...
I decided to make it a "Pretty Pretty Princess" Party, just like the game I used to play when I was a little girl. This is the invitation I put together for it. It is an edited version of the front of the game, and I inserted Shannons face into the princess's. This was a big hit!
I figured that getting married was a lot like going from a princess to a queen, so I did a little presentation with a crown and sash. It worked out really well for the party. There were games throughout the day/night that you had to win to get jewelry and crowns. It was so much fun. We all met at Shannons house on Lake Washington where we ate lunch and cake and played a "How well do you know Shannon" game. Then we went on a scavenger hunt through tht city where we had to spell out letters from Shannons name. Here is Kari and Lauren making an "R" at the troll.
The first team to finish got to wear princess crowns the rest of the night. My team got last because we had no idea how to get to Gasworks park, and traffic was really bad! Here we are spelling a "C" at Kerry Park
From there we went to "The Garage" which is a really neat bowling place in Seattle. We had such a blast! We had our own private area to eat and play around and we had enough room for all the girls to bowl 2 full games. Here is Shannon (a little intoxicated) before she started to bowl. Yes, she is carrying a "you-know-what" that her sister gave her to wear around. "Willy" became the mascot of the party.
Once we had played a few games we headed out to a dance club called Venom. It was packed full of people, but we didnt mind too much because we got the VIP room! We all danced until 2 in the am and then headed on home. All the girls that attended were a lot of fun, and did a great job helping to give Shannon a good "last single night out".
Cory just moved back here from Utah a few months ago and it has been really nice to have him back home. Recently we got to hang out in the city and we took the elevator up to the top of the Space Needle.
I know that its common for parents to feel old when their child becomes legal, but is it weird when an older sibling feels that way? It seems like just yesterday we were building forts under the ping pong table and planning pranks to play on all the babysitters. 
When Cory was born, my parents asked me what I wanted to name him. I thought long and hard and decided to name him after my hero at the time, Bill Cosby. I threw a fit when I heard my parents call him Cory instead of Cosby the day they brought him home from the hospital.
so they spent the rest of the night enjoying the weather from the other side of the screen door.
Matt and I just got a new BBQ from some friends that moved back to Utah, and we are sure putting it to use! Its the perfect size for our back deck, and it works great. Last summer we ate out almost everyday because it was too hot to cook inside, so it will be nice to have the BBQ to make our own dinners outside this year, and save some money.